These have been compiled into a resource for teachers to download with introductions by Mark explaining how they fitted into the original play concept and how they evolved into the goat scenes which bookend the play.

This is a fantastic insight into the resource for those studying the play, whether it be in the classroom purely as an exploratory text or for the EDUQAS GCSE exam.

These scenes will offer teachers using Hard to Swallow a unique way of introducing the Billy Goats to their classes, using a lesson or two to stage these little scenes imaginatively. The two scenes that appear in the final play will make so much more sense after working on these… not to mention the development of an appropriate physicalised performance style for them.

There is an introduction by Mark Wheeller; additionally each scene is explained, with background to its evolution and how it originally fitted into the play.

I have been writing since my schooldays at Marlwood Comprehensive School, Bristol. My dream was to be the next Ziggy Stardust. No-one shared my belief in “Eed Sud and The Luminous Earwigs” and I realised no one wanted to hear my songs. I did not give up easily and found people to write plays around them and my friends seemed keen to perform in these musicals! I ran out of friends willing to spend their time writing plays for me so, in 1980 took the plunge myself.

Together with my students over nearly forty years, I have been grappling to find ways of presenting stories to their mums and dads (and various festival adjudicators) that will interest, entertain and inform. Many stories we have told are exceptional and people are at last beginning to see that the way we have told them is exceptional too!